Texas Education Agency requests audit of how it investigated El Paso school district cheating

Failure to catch cheating scheme is targeted

Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams talked to educators, students, parents and others during an October town hall meeting at the El Paso Community College Administrative Service Center Boardroom. He believes that the state education agency's investigative functions should be audited after it failed to uncover a cheating scheme at the El Paso Independent School District. (Times file photo)

Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams now believes that the state education agency's investigative functions should be audited after it failed to uncover a cheating scheme at the El Paso Independent School District.

Williams sent a letter this week to the state auditor's office asking for an investigation into why the Texas Education Agency did not catch a cheating scheme in the EPISD two years ago that denied some students a proper education in order to bypass state and federal accountability standards.

The request marks a departure from comments Williams made to the El Paso Times in October. Williams said then that he did not believe the TEA's inability to catch cheating at EPISD in 2010 warranted the hiring of an external auditor to examine investigative failures at the state agency.

TEA spokesman Gene Acuña said Williams is responding to concerns he has heard since visiting El Paso in October. Gov. Rick Perry appointed Williams to lead the state agency in September to succeed Robert Scott, who resigned earlier this year.

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"In his discussions with community members and acknowledging the reporting and concerns raised by the El Paso Times, this continues to be an issue that hangs over this agency, and he wants to address it," Acuña said. "He made a commitment to listen to what the people had to say, and he's lived up to that."

Former EPISD Superintendent Lorenzo García is now serving a 3å-year federal prison term after pleading guilty in June to two counts of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, including scheming with at least six unnamed co-conspirators to rig the federal accountability system.

The El Paso Times began detailing the cheating scheme in April after compiling thousands of documents through the state's Public Information Act. The scheme targeted students at low-performing campuses to boost graduation rates and sophomore scores on the test by kicking some out of school, preventing others from enrolling and holding foreign students in the ninth grade for a year no matter how many credits they had earned.

TEA officials did not catch the cheating scheme and twice cleared the EPISD of wrongdoing in 2010 in response to allegations by then-state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh that the district was "disappearing" students at low-performing campuses to skirt state and federal accountability standards. García, the former superintendent of the district, then used those TEA reports to dismiss allegations of cheating.

Three months ago the state agency required the EPISD to hire an external auditor to examine how the cheating scheme went unchecked and was able to thrive at the school district. But the agency, which also failed to catch the scheme, did not require the same of itself.

"What TEA ordered EPISD to do, the federal government has a duty to order TEA to do," Shapleigh said. "Documents make very clear that TEA had extensive knowledge of cheating. That fact implicates TEA."

Williams has said TEA has implemented some changes since his appointment but he is now going a step further by asking the state auditor to perform an independent investigation.

"In light of the facts surrounding the El Paso investigation, I am requesting an independent evaluation by the SAO of our agency's investigative processes and scope of work to determine why the cheating scheme was not detected," Williams said in his letter to the state auditor's office. "I also seek recommendations on how TEA can improve its processes and controls when conducting future investigations within our existing resources."

State Auditor John Keel, in a response sent to the agency Thursday, said his office "is fully engaged with audit projects scheduled for the current fiscal year" and would not be able to get to the request until fiscal year 2014.

Even then, Keel wrote in his letter to Williams, his office is inundated with state-mandated audits and "adding additional discretionary performance audits to our schedule depends largely on the availability of staff resources."

Acuña said TEA is considering hiring an external auditor to investigate the agency's possible lapses in 2010. He was unable to offer a timeline.

"I don't believe that we're content to wait until 2014, so we are exploring what other options we have to get this done," Acuña said.

On Nov. 19, the El Paso Times sought interviews with TEA officials for a story that will be published this weekend about allegations that TEA denied a 2010 request by an EPISD administrator that it conduct an independent audit of grade manipulations at Bowie High.

Acuña said Williams' decision to request an external audit of the agency's investigative functions was not related to the newspaper's coming story. He said the agency had been considering seeking an external audit for several weeks but could not provide a date for when officials first decided to reach out to the state auditor.

Williams' letter says TEA's internal audit director contacted the state auditor's office on Nov. 20 to discuss the external investigation. It also states that articles from the El Paso Times were given to the state auditor's office during that meeting.

Zahira Torres may be reached at ztorres@elpasotimes.com; 512-479-6606.